By Tim Fleischer
Editor-in-Chief
“Your troubles are over because here I am!”
Ken Clapp would announce his arrival in our newspaper office with that phrase -- or one similar to it -- almost every week day.
He would always bring with him some tidbit gleaned from the Do-No-Gooders (the coffee group he haunted for a quarter century), the Post Office parking lot (Salado’s most social place) or from one of the three newspapers he read daily.
A bee-line he would make past the desks and anyone sitting at them for the coffee pot in the back. If the pot was empty, we’d know about it.
In the 23 years I have known Ken, I do not know that he has ever brewed a pot of his own coffee. I think it was a form of complex science and mathematics -- quantum physics to a native of the rain forest.
His brain was far too filled with politics, history and jokes to have room in it for the skills of coffee making.
But -- like any real newspaperman -- coffee ran through his veins as much as the Devil’s Ink.
Clapp was a muckraker. Pure and simple. Muckraker, by the way, is not an insult. It is the highest compliment paid to a newspaperman such as Ken.
His love of newspapers began as a child, delivering the Cleveland Plains Dealer during the latter years of the Depression and beginning years of the FDR Presidency.
After a series of careers, Ken landed in Salado. He was in the Air Force at an early age, which brought him to Texas, where he met and married his lifelong love Melba and where he spent 60 years of his life. He taught school, became an administrator, wrote for the local valley newspaper, became a publisher and then got involved in politics, working with one of the last old-style conservative Texas Democrats, Dolph Briscoe.
Ken’s tribute to Gov. Briscoe last year in his “Off the Record” column gave a little insight into one of his great loves: real Texas politics.
Ken brought a maturity to this newspaper that was (and sometimes continues to be) sorely lacking. He joined us just a couple of months after we purchased the newspaper from the founding Kelley family 23 years ago. Since starting for us, he never missed a column. Think of it: 1,100 plus deadlines met in a row.
He wrote about George Herbert Walker Bush not knowing what a cash register scanner was and how this contributed to his ultimate political downfall. He wrote about William Jefferson Clinton and the sordid impeachment. Back in 1993, he wrote that “If Clinton wins, we all win.” He wrote that missive following Clinton’s first inauguration. It was filled with hope for that young President.
He wrote about George Walker Bush both as a Governor and as a President. In the days following the terrorist attacks on America, Ken wrote about how this country -- Republican, Democrat and undefined -- needed to unite in support of the Commander in Chief.
And he wrote about Barack Hussein Obama. Ken grew up and became an adult during a time of segregation and struggle. He wrote of Dr. King. He wrote of being in the classroom teaching when word came of President Kennedy’s death.
And on the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, Ken bravely and correctly wrote about the necessity for Hiroshima.
Not all of Ken’s writings was serious, lofty stuff. He loved to tease politicians -- from Claytie Williams to Ross Perot to his latest favorite target Governor-for-Life (also known as Governor Good Hair) Rick Perry.
His April 1 columns were the stuff of legends... and myth! Every year, he got over on his readers. We knew when his column hit the stands that week to man the phonelines. Most calls were congenial... “You got me good.” Some were angry. A few furious about being had with such obvious spoofs as the discovery that Salado was actually an Indian reservation and that casinos would soon be going up. Or the “loop” around the village.
Even though I was always on the inside of his spoofs, I will miss them as much as I know you readers will. I will miss his columns, but I will miss him blazing through the door much, much more.
Last time that Ken Clapp and I sat down in the back of the office for coffee, I told him I remembered when President Ronald Reagan said that he never worried too much about the deficit “because it’s big enough to take care of itself.”
Even though he had been in pain for some time and had become weaker and weaker with each passing day, Ken’s face visibly brightened at the mention to a passage midway through his 1,000-word weekly offering.
With the mention of his column, we quickly turned to politics -- local, state and national. He left that morning and it was the last time I would see him.
I heard from him two days later. He called from the hospital bed to ask if I would pull an old column to run in this space, because he wasn’t going to get one done. He passed the next afternoon. Up to the last hours of his life, Ken was a worker and newspaperman.
Every day, when he would leave the office, he would leave with one of two sayings. If he had to go by the church before going home, he would tell us “I’m off to do the Lord’s work.” If he was heading straight home for lunch with Melba, he would say, “Time to go see what the neighbors have brought in for supper.”
Ken is done with the Lord’s work now and he enjoys the reward of a good and faithful servant.
He signed each of his columns with the slugline -30- which is the traditional way to mark the end of a story.
Ken’s story will not end with a -30-. His story will live on in the lives of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. His story will live on in the Salado Civic Center and Salado Church of Christ.
His story will live on in the memories and stories shared among the Do No Gooders and in his many stories printed indelibly in black and white.
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